Property management co. to JUST find a tenant?

Question

Are there any recommendations for a property management company to hire for tenant locator services?  I'm only looking for a company to find a tenant.  From there, I am able to self manage.  Any recommendations would be appreciated.

I've used one in the past that charges only a half month's rent to find a tenant, screen them, and sign them to whatever terms you agree upon.  However, I feel on my latest rental, they are under performing.  Not advertising well, not in communication with me throughout, and leaving a vacancy in my rental.  Seeking a new company to handle this.  Thank you.

Tiffany Alexy · Answer

Thank you @Brian Corbett!

Ben Kirchner · Answer

For me, it makes sense to pay someone to find the tenants for me. I have properties that are 40 minutes away, and my full time job keeps me too busy to be able to make that commute often to show the property. In the past, my phone was going off like crazy. Many of the people inquiring flake out and stand you up for meeting at the property. I have found I'm better to just pay the half month's rent to enable a company to show the property, run the background checks, and meet the valid candidates after all the tire kickers have been filtered down to paying the application fee.

Still looking for suggestions on a property management company that can help with a tenant placement service.

Brian Corbett · Answer

@Tiffany Alexy might can help you with this need.

Jiri B. · Answer

Yeah that totally makes sense @Ben Kirchner. I haven't heard of any service like that. Property management companies makes money from the monthly fees, not from finding and placing the tenant. The low fees for finding tenants are there to cover the advertising, screening and legal services. I can't imagine anyone doing all that work (advertising, showings, screening, contracts etc) and then just handing you over the tenant with the lease for such a low fee.

But if there was, and the service would be any decent, i would use it for sure as well!

As i said earlier, the closest you can get to that, is to get a realtor to list your home on MLS, then other relators will handle all the phone calls and showings and just give you the ready and willing tenant.. Then you can just do the screening and the lease yourself.

Jiri B. · Answer

To find tenants, its pretty much all just advertise your home and do the showings. I'm kind of with @Carole G. If you have the time, show the property yourself and you get to meet the tenants. You will be surprised how much you can learn just by meeting the potential tenants.

As for the advertising, you can do Zillow with syndications so you post it once, and it will be on Zillow, Trulia and Hotpads (Those are the onces personally get the most leads).

You can also get it listed on MLS (i usually just list the more expensive one there a let other realtors show my properties). In Raleigh, anything under $1500 is extremely easy to find tenants for so i don't even bother using MLS.

There are some free screening tools that you can just send a link to tenants, they fill up the details and you get the results. Or you can just pay for a screening service.

I think finding the tenants and do the showings is the most time consuming part of the whole property management side so it might be hard to find a property manager that will just do that for a small fee.

So yeah the closest to what you want to do is to get a realtor, list it on the MLS and they will find you a tenant for a small fee (which is negotiable) and what i usually see on the MLS, its usually $200 to up to 1month rent. But you will have to do do your own screening..

Jason E. Smith · Answer

Hey Ben, Out of curiosity what is the google review rating of the company you have previously used which you don't feel is doing a good job?  That being said I've found good results when using google reviews to help decide property management.  And I've learned the AMO designation simply means the property manager has a lot of paperwork and doesn't have any impact on customer service.  Both AMO's I've used I've had horrible experience with and have found my case not to be isolated with both companies.  Hope that helps, best of luck!

Carole G. · Answer

Why would you use a company to find a tenant unless you don't have time to show it?  You can do everything they do, and probably do a better job, since you will be meeting the applicant yourself.

Property management co. to JUST find a tenant?

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